


The Rain Keeps Falling

by Luthien



Series: Author's Favourites [8]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: First Time, M/M, Romance, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-22
Updated: 2003-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry listens to the rain falling on the roof after everything has ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rain Keeps Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in October 2003 but is set when Harry is 18, so the future it depicts is AU after Book 5.

The rain keeps falling.

Harry liked the sound of rain on the roof. He'd never heard it before until that first summer when he came back to Privet Drive from Hogwarts and the Dursleys had 'let him use' Dudley's second bedroom. He'd awoken late one night, not sure why he was awake, but just certain that something was different. Once he'd worked out what the sound was, he'd lain there for ages, warm and dry beneath the covers, listening to the soothing, repetitive beat of rain on the roof.

He's lying on the floor in a tiny attic room beneath another roof now, listening to the rain hammering down. It's a grey summer afternoon rather than the middle of the night, and the Dursleys' house is long ago and far away. This house is the present headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, though it's about as unlike Sirius' old house at Number 12, Grimmauld Place as it's possible to be. This house is out in the country somewhere. When they first moved in, Hermione said, rather wistfully, that they're close to Cambridge, and they might be, for all Harry knows. No one would ever guess from looking out the window that there was anything other than flat, flat fields for miles in any direction, though. The duckpond and the stand of trees near the back of the house is as interesting as the scenery gets around here. The bare ground around the pond turns to mud when it rains. It will be muddy out there now, slippery and dangerous. The rain will be soaking deep into the ground and turning it into a bog.

It's Snape's house. It's not an old family home like Sirius' house was. Snape didn't have one of those. He bought this house, almost brand new - "Only one owner!" the flyer from the Muggle agent had proudly declared - when the Order needed somewhere to go. Harry's pretty sure that Snape found this place because Professor Dumbledore decided that Voldemort's followers weren't likely to track them down to a Muggle cottage - particularly one protected by _Fidelius._ Harry sometimes tries to imagine Snape dealing with the agent, as he must have done in order to buy the house. The thought of Snape in Muggle garb is mind-boggling. Did he wear his usual black robes when he went to see the Muggles? He might have got away with it, just, if he'd given the impression that he was some eccentric professor from Cambridge in academic dress. Uncle Vernon would have looked at him suspiciously, but not all Muggles are like the Dursleys.

The house reminds Harry of Number 4, Privet Drive. It's cramped, or seems so, especially to people used to living in a castle. The walls are a plain white, and there are modern fixtures in the bathrooms and kitchen. There's even a cupboard under the stairs, which he takes care to avoid looking at in passing. He half-expects to find Aunt Petunia in the kitchen, instead of Mrs Weasley, when he comes down for breakfast each morning. Mrs Weasley had trouble with the kitchen at first - she said it felt all wrong with nowhere even to hang a cauldron, which she was adamant any respectable witch should be able to do in a proper kitchen - but a couple of the others got to work on transfiguring stuff and soon made things right. Now there's a proper fireplace, incongruous, right next to the kitchen sink with its gleaming, almost-new taps. Aunt Petunia would not have approved.

Snape didn't like the house, hadn't from the moment he saw it, and went on to loathe it with a passion he'd only previously shown for Harry himself. But he bought the house because it was needful, because he really didn't have much of a choice when it came right down to it, just as he'd always done - mostly always done - what was needful when it came to Harry, too.

The day they'd all moved in, he'd eyed Harry from the front steps, suspicious and untrusting. As Harry came up the path with his meagre belongings levitating behind him, he'd wondered if Snape was going to get out of the way and let him inside at all.

It was raining that day, too.

Snape had stood in front of the doorway, arms folded, staring at Harry. Harry had stared back. They'd stood there for a good minute, getting steadily rain-soaked, just staring. Finally, Snape had stepped to one side, flicking a lock of limp black hair out of his face as he did so. The hair spattered against his cloak, greasy and wet and altogether unattractive. Snape spared Harry one last, glowering look then turned to scowl up into the sky. His face was rain wet when he turned and followed Harry inside. Harry got the distinct impression that Snape didn't like the wet. Odd, really, considering how long Snape had lived in those damp, murky dungeons at Hogwarts. Typical, though. The only predictable thing there'd ever been about Snape was the way he kept surprising you.

He'd surprised Harry that last night. Or perhaps Harry had surprised him. In the end, though, neither of them had seemed very surprised at all.

They'd all known the end was coming. It was just a question of when. The days dragged on, each one longer than the last, as the rapeseed grew strong and yellow in the fields about them thanks to all the rain.

It was raining, yet again, the day the sign had come. That was when Harry knew for sure that the next day would mark the end of all their fears, and perhaps the end of all their hopes and dreams as well. By the same time tomorrow, it would all be over bar the shouting, one way or another.

If the preceding days had dragged, that final night before the battle seemed endless. Harry couldn't sleep. Long after everyone else had retired to bed, he wandered around the house, keyed up as tight as anything, whirling round at a noise, only to realise it was simply the creak of a floorboard in the room above.

His wanderings took him upstairs soon after that. He wasn't really surprised to find everything dark and deserted when he reached the top of the stairs. As he stepped onto the runner, the hallway light came on so he could see his way. He moved along the passage, stepping as quietly as he could, until he got to the short flight of steps at the far end which took him up to the attic.

The little attic room was in darkness, too, the only illumination provided by the gentle glow coming up from the bottom of the stairs. It took Harry a moment to make out the dark shape on the floor by the tiny window, even though his eyes were already accustomed to the gloom. Snape sat there, knees drawn up against his chest, the pale skin of face and hands just visible when they moved. Harry fancied he could see the glitter of black eyes against the darkness as Snape turned his head to regard him.

Harry stood there. He couldn't think of anything to say. There were no words quite right for a night like this. Snape seemed to think so, too. At least, he didn't say anything either.

Harry hesitated in the doorway a moment longer, torn between entering the room and turning tail and running right down to the kitchen so that he could pretend he'd never been here. However, a fairly large part of him was not remotely surprised when he closed the door behind him and started walking across the room to Snape.

It was close to pitch black in the room with the door shut, so he had to guess how many steps it would take to make it to the window. A sudden gust of wind outside made the windowpane rattle and helped him get his bearings. He reached out in front of him and felt the shape of the windowframe beneath his fingers. With a sigh of relief, he plonked himself down on the floor, his bare arm brushing against the fine wool of Snape's robe as he did so.

They sat in silence. The only sounds to be heard were Harry's own breaths, mingling point and counterpoint with Snape's, the patter of raindrops against the window, and the constant rhythm of the rain beating down on the roof. After a bit, Harry held his own breath so that he could listen to Snape's, deep and even close beside him. Then Harry exhaled, and finally let one hand touch Snape's robe.

Harry felt muscle tense beneath his hand. He was surprised at that, until he realised that Snape must still be sitting hunched up just as he had been when Harry had entered the room. He moved his hand ever so slowly down the long leg, letting the movement become gradually circular as he went, until at last he was close to rubbing gently through the wool with the flat of his hand. His fingers had reached Snape's thigh and made it almost to the floor when a hand shot out and gripped his wrist, stopping further progress.

"I-" Harry still didn't know what to say.

The hand let go of his wrist. Neither one of them made any further move.

"I don't care for the rain," said Snape, in an almost conversational tone which only just betrayed a degree of underlying tension.

"Then don't pay attention to it," replied Harry, just as he felt a hand come to rest against his chest.

Harry reached out with both hands and pushed down gently on Snape's knees. Snape's legs unfolded, and Harry felt and heard Snape's robes shift as he straightened out his legs before him.

"I don't intend to," said Snape.

And then Harry felt what must be a sleeve brush against his face as Snape's other hand came round to rest, unexpectedly warm, against his neck. Harry could feel Snape's breath against his face, more rapid than before. His breath was warm, too.

They stayed there like that, not saying anything, not moving, prolonging the moment before the beginning as the rain beat down on the roof above them in a desperate rhythm. And then, all of a sudden, Harry moved his face forward, their noses bumped together as their lips searched - and then they had begun. Soon they found their own rhythm.

The rest of the night passed much too quickly. First light found them still in the attic room, lying on a rug that had been transfigured into a simple bed, clothing scattered all around. Harry was lying on his back, thinking about hoisting himself up on one elbow so that he could get a good look at Snape and find out if he looked any different in the light of the new day than he had every other day that Harry had known him.

Harry never got the chance. That was when the protective charm on the house was ripped away, followed by much of the wall. Harry didn't have time to consider what that meant right then. At the end of the day, he would mourn all they had lost that day, starting with Dumbledore and going right through the ranks, counting the empty places until they had determined the extent of their losses. But right then and there, as their safety literally fell away from them, all he could do was reach for his wand and hope he was spared long enough to begin putting their battle plan into motion. He was aware of Snape, springing out of bed beside him, but neither had the leisure to exchange so much as a look, much less a word.

The field behind the house became a battleground that day. The rapeseed crop was flattened and ground into the mud. So were many other things. There were great deeds done that day as the rain poured down, so steady and unrelenting that Harry could barely see as he streaked through the sky on his broomstick. He lost his glasses just as the end - Voldemort's end - came, but his glasses didn't really matter at that point. There was nothing in the scene of devastation below him that he could bear to look at right at that moment.

The healers moved slowly through the blackened field, searching for survivors they didn't expect to find. Mud and blood mixed together beneath their feet until no one could tell one from the other, and the rain kept falling down upon it all like tears.

Now, weeks later, Harry's lying on the floor in the restored attic room in Snape's house, listening to the rain on the roof. He's lying on a rug that's just a rug, though once it was more.

Harry doesn't know how he feels about Snape. He used to hate him, and then he came to almost tolerate him... and then there came the day when he didn't know what he felt any more. He doesn't know what would have happened that morning if the Death Eaters had decided to hold off their attack for even five minutes more. He doesn't really seem to know anything much now. He feels as hollow as their victory. As he lies here in the gloom of fast-approaching dusk, all he knows for sure is that it's raining and Snape is out there, in the ground that is rapidly turning into a bog, and the water is seeping down, soaking everything, making him wet, drowning him. And Snape doesn't like to be wet, he doesn't care for the rain.

Harry liked the sound of rain on the roof. He liked it once, but he doesn't now.

The rain keeps falling, regardless.


End file.
